Daily Yellowstone journal., 1887-07-26
WHEN ARE WE OLD,

~
Various Estimates and Statements.
According to the rules of the late Pro-
fessor Faraday the natural age OF man
should be 100 years. The duration OF life
both in man and animal he believed to
be measured by its time of growth, its
natural termination being five times that
age, o. five removes from that point.
Man being twenty years in growing, lives
five times twenty, or 100 years. He also
divides life into two equal halves-growth
and decline; and this into infancy, youth,
virility and age; infancy extending to
the Goth year, youth to the 50th, because
It is the period the tissues become firm;
virility from so to IS, during which the
organism remains complete, and at rs
old age commences.
Another eminent scientist, DIR. Farr,
also says that the natural lifetime of man
is a century, which is the length of time
the body will live under the most favor
able conditions. DIR. Farr has divided life
as follows: Boyhood, 10 to Is years;
youth, Is to 25; manhood, IS to S.; ma
turity, IS to rs; ripeness, IS to IS, and
old age, So and upward. II in the pres
ence Of these eminent authorities / might
be allowed to make my own estimate, it
would he as follows: A child continues
to he such until he is 20, which is the
law of the land; he is a young man from
90 to 40; a middle aged man from 40 to
go; IN elderly MAJ from 60 to 80, and
an old man from so to 100.
There seems to be considerable doubt,
however, as to whether the age of 100 is
at all near the limit to which people may
and frequently do live. On this point Pro-
fessor j.. r. Buchanan writes as follows
in The Journal Of Man: 1.-The attainable
limits of human longevity are generally
moderated by the medical profession and
by popular opinion. Instead of the
scriptural limit of three score and ten l
would estimate twice that amount, OF
140 years, al the ideal age of healthy
longevity, when mankind shall have been
bred and trained with the same wise en-
ergy that has been expended on horses
and cattle"
The estimate of l40 years as q prac-
teal longevity for a nobler generation is
sustained by the number of that &
fourteen, IL / recollect rightly found in
Italy by a census under one Of the later
Roman emperors, but for the race now
on the globe a more applicable estimate
is that of the European scientist that the
normal longevity of an animal is five
times its period of growth. Mans
growth, however, is not limited to
twenty, and if we extend the period of
maturity to twenty-eight, the same rule
would give 140 as an age for the best
specimens of humanity, and as this has
been attained in some cases, its general
possibility in improved conditions is thus
demonstrated. Professor Buchanan then
goes on to give a number of instances of
persons nov living who have nearly at
tanned the age of 140.
On this point a statement recently pub
lished by NJ. Kohl, an eminent Russian
scientist, will prove interesting if not
astounding. He says:
despite their enormous consumption
of the vile liquor called 'vodki' Ia sort Of
brandy, the Russians are stronger,
healthier and more long lived than any
other European nation. From the sturdy
old fellow of a century's standing down
to his great great %grandchild in the era
die, brandy-or, in other words, vodki-
is the drink of all; and so entirely does 1t
seem to be adapted to the constitution of
the people that in no country does 80 lit
tie drunkenness appear on the surface,
and in non do the inhabitants live TO
such an enormous age with fewer at
tendant infrmities. In the whole Rus
sian empire there die annually 10000
men above 80 years Of age-that is 10
say, a third part of the yearly obituary
300 above 100 years Of age; fifty to fifty
five who are more than 100 years old;
twenty above 100, and eight above 1876,
while on the average two or three may
be annually reckoned to attain the age of
from 40 TO 155.
II we go back to scriptural times we
find many instances Of longevity, the
truth of which we could not accept from
any other authority than the bible. The
late Mr.. Methuselah, for instance, lived
to be 1000 years old, and many others
are mentioned as living 500 to 800 years.
Compared with these old stagers, the
famous Mr.. Parr, Of London, was cut off
in the flower of his youth, for he only
lived 155 years. He might, however,
have continued to live many years longer,
in his rustic health and happiness, had he
not been taken to the court of King
Charles, where the highly seasoned dishes,
combined with his WI gluttony, soon
killed him.-Home knowledge.